TRANSPORTATION
Before the war there were in Russia 37,000 railway locomotives. At the end of the war 13,000 were left. Of these, at the time of the Brest Litovsk treaty, thirty-five percent were disabled. In the spring of 1919 the total number of disabled locomotives amounted to fifty percent. Since that time there has been some improvement, and last August only forty-seven percent of them were disabled. There is a great demand for locomotives. Russia could use to advantage the entire product of the United States for the next six years. Approximately the same conditions prevail with reference to cars.
Practically the whole transportation system was given over to the movement of troops and army supplies. In certain sections of the country there was a surplus of grain, but no facilities to transport it to the cities.
On the last stage of the journey to Moscow I had a vivid glimpse into the transportation problem of Soviet Russia. Two or three hours out of Smolensk we stopped at a small way station and hooked on seventeen cars loaded with wood intended to relieve the critical fuel shortage in Moscow. After five or six hours’ journey, with only brief stops, the train made a prolonged halt. I got out to learn the cause of the delay. The cars loaded with wood had been uncoupled from the train and men were busy throwing the billets into the field by the track. The station was crowded with soldiers. Word had been received to rush reinforcements southward to meet the advance of Denikin. These cars were needed to carry the troops.
“What about the wood?” I asked, “Isn’t it needed in Moscow?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “The nights are getting very cold in Moscow. But Moscow must wait. The army comes first.”
Such incidents were happening daily, hourly, no doubt, all over Russia. Always, they complained, the necessities of the war and the mobilization hampered the productive enterprises of the nation.